DIY 1×8 Speaker Cab – ROB C MUSIC

An Attempt at Stage Sound Reinforcement

With a Celestion TN0820 8″ speaker on its way to me I decided to try out something with the stock speaker (or another upgraded speaker when budget allows) in a 2nd cab to help deliver my guitar over on the other side of the stage (something the other guitarist in my band requested).

He said he missed the sound of my guitar coming from the stage when I was using my “personal monitor” setup and suggested I still bring my original cab to gigs. Well that pretty much defeats the object of the purpose of the micro 1×8 cab in front of me. I went that route in order to reduce the size and weight of what I have to carry to gigs, especially as the band also provides the sound system, so there’s enough to transport as it is!

However I don’t like to compromise too much and I don’t like my band mates being compromised, so I thought I’d try another 1×8 cab and use the original speaker from the Orange cab. I also wanted to make sure it would fit in my DIY amp/speaker stand in case I decided to use the new cab under my amp and use the Orange cab over the other side of the stage.

The final coat of lacquer has just gone on the new cab, so I’m leaving it to cure for a month before buffing it up. We’ll see how the finish holds up to the abuses of the stage!

EDIT: I’m not leaving it to cure for a month. I’ve figured that a week is good enough for buffing up the finish. This lacquer seems to stay soft and susceptible to marking for about 6 months or more, so leaving it longer before buffing makes no difference!

This will give me a good amount of time to test out my new Celestion speaker in the Orange PPC108 and when I’m ready to fire up the new cab I’ll try out the Celestion in that too just in case it sounds better. The new cab is wider, but the same height. It’s not much bigger, but it might just make the speaker sound better (or worse of course). It’s only a hacked-together job made from leftover MDF and how good it ends up sounding is hit or miss. Still I’m sure it’ll work well enough for it’s intended purpose.

I’m really hoping the TN0820 will work well with the Toneblock. I think it’ll probably sound a bit dark, but with the positioning of the speaker on stage (pretty much directly at my face) I think dark will be a blessing. The sound coming from the Palmer PDI-09 DI box will be the same, which always seems to work well.

It was fun to make, didn’t take long and cost almost nothing, so it’s all good and if I have some spare cash I’ll get another high-powered 8″ speaker so I have a more equal power handling across two cabs.

If it sounds really bad then I can still resort to the Kustom Defender 1×12 cab.